Ilja Dragunov Reveals How He Had Trouble Sleeping After WWE NXT Takeover 36 UK Title Win

New WWE NXT UK Champion Ilja Dragunov recently spoke with Alistair McGeorge of Metro UK and revealed how he had trouble sleeping after Sunday's big NXT Takeover 36 title win over WALTER.

Takeover 36 saw Dragunov capture the strap from the Imperium leader in a rematch of their epic bout on the October 29, 2020 edition of NXT UK TV, ending WALTER's historic reign at 870 days. The Mad Russian admitted the enormity of the entire situation took a while to sink in as he felt the physical and emotional toll that the match took on him.

"The moment where it actually happened – it was a bit of time until the adrenaline went down," Dragunov said. "But I remember coming back to my hotel room, completely not able to sleep – and I was extremely tired, my body was completely sore.

"I couldn't sleep because I had so many different thoughts in my mind. The whole payoff to it, how it all came together being at Takeover, getting this kind of attention from the people getting this reaction to what we did."

Dragunov said he wanted to put on a more intense performance than they did in October 2020, and he's satisfied with how the match went.

"Coming to this match, with the thought in my mind to bring an even more intense performance than that first match – and it all went so well," he said. "We were able to do something special again, it was just incredible. I can't even explain the thoughts on this, because it was a complete mixture of everything."

WWE is pushing that a new era of NXT UK will begin with Dragunov as champion moving forward. He has been announced to appear on next Tuesday's main NXT show on the USA Network.

Stay tuned for more. Below is a clip from Sunday's match: